To A Point
by mizbitch2you
Summary: Aziraphale's patience is tested and Crowley is indecorous. AxC.
1. Chapter 1

The traditional phrase is "the patience of a saint," and not "the patience of an angel." Still, angels have no small measure of the virtue themselves, being, it is postulated, the paragon of every conceivable virtue. It is to this effect that the average angel will tolerate nearly anything that is put upon them.

To a point.

"Crowley," said Aziraphale, his voice fairly dripping with the aforementioned patience, "…_Crowley_."

"What?" Crowley cupped his hand over the receiver of the telephone and turned around, his face a picture of innocence. Well, it would have been, if not for the faint trace of steam rising from the receiver.

"Crowley, it's been over a month."

"Yes?"

"And the Powers Down Below still haven't contacted you."

"Yes?"

"So it's really safe to assume that any attempts on your part to get back in favor would be wasted, at this point."

"Yes?"

"So why, Crowley, _why_, for the love of everything holy, damned, or in between, are you tying up London's portable phone system again?"

The demon glanced at his watch and grinned. It had been over an hour. He replaced the steaming telephone gently on its cradle and cracked all his knuckles.

"…Habit."

Aziraphale ran one perfectly manicured hand through his perfectly manicured hair and gave what really could only be defined as a perfectly manicured sigh.

"I suppose I'll leave you to it, then, and go spend an hour helping little old ladies across the street, shall I?"

Crowley spread his hands and tried to keep his smile as human as possible.

"I'd like to think I can keep you better occupied than that, my dear." He tugged lightly at first the left, then the right cuff of his tailored shirt and gestured to the white suede couch. "With the world at our disposal, angel –" He let the title, or profession, roll out from between his thin lips as if it were a particularly spicy bit of curry – "You would prefer to occupy your time with random bloody acts of k–" He paused, grimacing, then continued. "_Kindness_ than with culture, automobiles, and other…gentlemanly pursuits?"

"Gentlemanly pursuits?" Aziraphale snickered, a decidedly unangelic sound. "That, coming from you, tends to mean acts of mayhem and debauchery. Or possibly caviar. Either way, it's nothing I should be engaging in if I want a rat's chance of ever having my old job back."

"A rat's chance?" One dark eyebrow lifted.

"Where you're concerned, you old serpent, the rat and I have similar chances. And similar fates as well, most likely."

Crowley licked his lips. His tongue was longer than it should have been, and it wasn't quite forked.

"You should know, dear friend, that I would never _dream_ of squashing you with a book. Particularly not with your unique and very valuable copy of the Treacle Bible, which I would shudder to even _consider_ scraping clean with your reading glasses and putting back in your store-room without your even noticing."

Aziraphale snatched the glasses from his face and regarded them with the same horror he generally reserved for particularly corrupt politicians or people who place obscene telephone calls. After a moment, he realized that Crowley was hissing with laughter, his shoulders shaking vaguely with mirth.

"If I were capable of hate, I swear to you, Crowley," the angel said between his teeth, setting the wire-framed glasses lovingly on the mantel and wiping his palms across the thighs of his expensive white trousers.

Crowley took three long, gliding steps towards him and fetched up nose-to-nose with the pale, scowling creature.

"If you were capable of hate, Aziraphale, I am confident that it would be directed at the fellow you could not dissuade from buying your original Shkagaspeafe manuscript, and not at me." His expression softened and he carefully removed his sunglasses, folded them, and tossed them aside. "After all, who would tolerate your insufferable habits – the way you feed stray animals so they _always _come 'round again and poo on the porch, or the way you molt all over my antique rugs and spill cocoa on my suede couch – if not for me?"

His hand came up and the backs of his fingers brushed against Aziraphale's jaw. They both pretended not to hear the angel's sharp breath, and Crowley drew his thumb firmly over the side of Aziraphale's nose. The angel went nearly cross-eyed for a moment, then blinked as Crowley drew his hand away and showed him the smear of ink on the pad of his thumb.

"The fountain pen," he said unnecessarily, wiping the ink on the thigh of black trousers which were worth rather more than his liver on the black market.

Well, maybe not _his_ liver; he did drink fairly heavily on occasion, and besides, nobody had ever really had the opportunity to open a demon up and see exactly what was going on in there, so his own inner workings were really a bit of a mystery even to him. He probably didn't _have_ a liver. He was probably just a formless mass of gooey evil contained by mortal skin, or something to similar effect.

The two men – or, man-like beings, rather – were still standing close enough that one's exhale very nearly became the other's inhale, and Crowley took this opportunity to realize that the angel was very slightly taller than he was.

"A certain mess cannot be avoided when dealing with the finer…elements…in…um…" Aziraphale trailed off, seemingly mesmerized by the demon's golden, slit-pupiled eyes. Crowley blinked, slowly, and thought that perhaps he should be irritated by the fact that he had to tilt his head back very slightly to meet Aziraphale's eyes.

He had to tilt it somewhat more in order to brush his lips, slightly chapped and warmed, like the rest of his skin, by some internalized hellfire, against the angel's.

Aziraphale started, his long-lashed eyes flying open. He didn't exactly pull away from Crowley, but the way every muscle in his body tensed at once telegraphed his unease.

"Anthony J. Crowley," the angel murmured in half-hearted protest, "I really must object. This is utterly indecorous." The feeling of his lips moving against Crowley's as he spoke nearly quelled the protest before it left his mouth.

It wasn't that he was innocent. Quite the contrary; one of the favorite off-duty pastimes of the Legions of Justice was people-watching, and darkness and locked doors were no barrier to angelic vision. He'd seen things that would drop the jaw of the most hardened aficionado and make the bravest bedroom adventurer wince and try to protect any exposed orifice.

And it wasn't that he was ill-equipped. Formed to be incognito amongst mortals, he had tried to account for any potential situation, including but not limited to wrestling matches, airport security, and nude beaches. Just in case.

But Crowley was Temptation, practically incarnate, and as his polar opposite, Aziraphale had no choice but to be Resistance. No matter how much the equipment in question, though long unused, seemed to be taking an interest in the sudden proximity. His hands curled loosely into fists.

Crowley was fixing him with an expectant amber stare as if waiting for him to make the next move. When the angel only blinked several times and dropped his gaze to the single opened button of Crowley's collar, the demon, being nothing if not opportunistic, took it as permission and wound his fingers in the white-blond hair at the nape of Aziraphale's neck before pulling his head roughly forward into a kiss.

Aziraphale made a small noise of surprise that went entirely unheeded against Crowley's mouth and his hands came up to brace against the front of Crowley's jacket. He almost pushed the demon away, but strong fingers tightened in his hair and a sudden inhale parted his lips under the demon's. Permission aside, Crowley chose to take this as an invitation and slid his tongue lightly over Aziraphale's lower lip.

At the brush of unexpected warmth, Aziraphale managed to break away from the unexpected oral juncture and look Crowley full in the eyes.

A slow breath.

An exhale that was almost shaky.

A deliberate moral sidestep.

"Let me tempt you," Crowley tried to say.

He got as far as "Let me t–" before Aziraphale's mouth covered his own. The rest of the words became a grunt, which became a moan as cool hands slid up his back, the angel's lips opened to him, and all of heaven was his.


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale considered the nature of temptation.

He considered the difference between genuine independent desire and succumbing to temptation. He wondered vaguely if one was more of a sin, at this stage, than the other.

Aziraphale considered the nature of temptation and tried very hard to stay upright as a pair of inescapably demonic lips traced the rounded line of his jaw. Crowley pushed at him, just gently enough so that he could pretend that he was taking a step backwards, then two, then four, then pressing his shoulderblades against the wall, of his own volition.

And the demon's lightly exploratory touch turned decisive, and then demanding, and Aziraphale's hands fisted in the thrice-patented, highly technologically advanced microfiber of Crowley's shirt.

"Crowley," he murmured in a voice was nowhere near as steady as he'd meant it to be. "_Crowley_."

Crowley, however, seemed wholly preoccupied with the patch of skin just below his ear, and did not reply.

The tongue on his skin, noticed Aziraphale, grateful for the unyielding wood against his back keeping him on his feet, was considerably more agile than a tongue really ought to be. He heard a small, throaty noise and decided to pretend that it hadn't emerged from his own mouth.

The angel's physical strength was, on the whole, unremarkable, (More than once he'd had to enlist Crowley's help in the gargantuan feat of opening a mustard jar.) and of his current state of distraction, little need be said; however, desperation lent him force as he wound his fingers into the dark hair curling just a little at the nape of Crowley's neck and hauled with all his might.

There was a soft sucking noise as the demon's mouth separated wetly from Aziraphale's throat and then Crowley's yellow eyes were meeting his dazedly in the pale glow of the apartment's sleek, modern light fixtures.

"What?" Crowley's tone was annoyed, as if he'd been interrupted while draining the ink out of all the ballpoint pens in an office building. His lips were pursed and almost obscenely red. Had his lips always been so scarlet, so tempting? It didn't seem worth it to try to recall. With some effort, Aziraphale focused his thoughts.

"Um," he said, and paused.

"I'm not sure I –" he added, then sighed. Those lips really were distractingly red. And…moist. Aziraphale didn't think he'd ever needed the word "kissable" to describe something before, but he was fairly sure that if anything merited the adjective, it was Crowley's lips.

Crowley examined him patiently, first with one eye, then the other.

"There really isn't much point in –" the angel tried again, and then gave up. "I do hope you know what you're doing, Crowley," he said finally.

"Who would know better than I?" There was mischief in the demon's pointed grin. Mischief, and a core-deep _knowing_ that was doing unexpected things to unexpected bits of Aziraphale's anatomy.

As temptations went, considered Aziraphale as he allowed himself resignedly to be led, warm fingers circling his elbow, to Crowley's impeccable white leather couch, this one was quality work, really top-notch. In the scheme of things, he really couldn't be blamed for – were those Crowley's _teeth_?

"I said," murmured Crowley, "Sit down, won't you?"

Aziraphale did. The sofa gave a soft creak of protest under his weight. The following whine as Crowley joined him there, one knee on either side of his thighs, could have come from sofa springs unaccustomed to such use, or from an angel unaccustomed to such contact.

Crowley undid the buttons before him with nimble fingers as he bent his dark head forward to suck lightly at Aziraphale's lower lip. There was a faint sweetness there, residue from the tea that Crowley could not dissuade him from sugaring into oblivion, or maybe that was just the way an angel's skin was supposed to taste. Rocking back on his heels, Crowley licked his way downwards to investigate further.

Aziraphale's bare chest had a light dusting of pale hair on it and tasted just as sweet as his lips. Crowley mouthed at it greedily, delighting in the sound of the hastily choked-off murmur that rumbled beneath his tongue. That sound, that quiet almost-whimper – it was the sound of temptation, and Crowley knew it well. To his ears it was Tchaikovsky, it was Schubert and it was rich, dark wine and it was all things full of delicious sin.

And Crowley – not as a demon delighting in successful temptation, but as a man (rather, as a man with a particularly maddening and as yet unfulfilled desire for his closest friend who also happened to be chaste by nature and whose skin was just _so_ soft) – couldn't help but let his breath out in a growl that was decidedly needy when said best friend wound strong, soft fingers into his hair and yanked him up into another eager kiss.

"Crowley, I _swear_," the angel mumbled, pulling away, lips glistening and cheeks flushed, "You are the most – _maddening_ –"

Crowley cut off that train of thought with efficiency, shifting his legs forward on the couch in a motion calculated to bring all his weight into the searing point of contact between one cloth-covered groin (black, linen, insistently hard) and another (white, tweedish, straining with clumsy and unfamiliar desire).

The two reacted to it in the same instant – Crowley's eyes going wide and dark gold,

Aziraphale's closing, lashes so fine, so delicate against the flush of his cheek.

"Open your eyes," hissed Crowley, "I want you to see me touch you."

And of course, Aziraphale had no choice but to obey. Pupils dilated so wide that they were surrounded only by a thin ring of pale blue, he stared into Crowley's slitted eyes and felt himself shudder under the demon's body.

And then his trousers were open much too suddenly to have been anything but Crowley working his will on them with no regard for the laws of physics, nature, or what really should or should not be done to a good pair of pants. Aziraphale had just enough time to swallow hard against the brush of cool air before Crowley's hands were like fire against him and he would have cried out but he hadn't the breath.

Crowley was undulating against him, and surely a spine wasn't meant to be so flexible? The angel's hands closed around Crowley's wrists and Crowley tensed, expecting to be pushed away again. But quite unexpectedly, Aziraphale was pulling him closer, pleading with his eyes, and trying without much subtlety to urge the demon once more into motion.

Crowley smiled, and he had never looked more serpentine than in that moment.

"Want something, Angel?"

Aziraphale made a sound that was very nearly a whine, and then shut his mouth in surprise that such a noise had emanated from it.

"Um," he said, "Yes?"

Crowley's lips brushed his chest, his stomach, then fastened wetly over the sensitive spot just inside his hipbone and began to suck, and Aziraphale's "Yes" became a "Yeeaghlk_Crowley_!"

"What?"

Oh, heavens. Aziraphale threw patience and angelic propriety to the winds and yanked at Crowley's collar.

"Stop teasing me, you… you _demon_," he very-nearly snarled, "Stop teasing and _touch_ me."

"Matthew, seven," murmured Crowley, his hot breath brushing like fingers over Aziraphale's skin, " – ask, and ye shall receive."

And receive, Aziraphale did. Crowley's mouth, unsurprisingly, was as hot as the inferno roiling beneath his skin, and the angel's lips parted in a near-soundless cry.

(It should here be noted that Aziraphale was generally reluctant to defile his tongue with profanity. At this juncture, however, his tongue could be said to be thoroughly defiled already, so the shudder that encompassed his psyche at the feel of the word "fuck" in his mouth was greatly eclipsed by the other sensations rolling through him, and he let it pass.)

Crowley glanced up and met Aziraphale's eyes again, doing something complicated with his tongue that made his back arch and his fingers clench and relax on the back of Crowley's neck.

Creatures of the divine and of the infernal have a different sense of time than do their human cousins; an unsurprising consequence of immortality. Centuries can pass between one breath and the next, or from the time one brews a cup of cocoa to when it's finished.

Meanwhile, the space of several minutes, as Aziraphale could now testify, could seem like aeons untold when one has the wicked circle of a demon's mouth busy with one's nether regions.

So empires rose and fell while Aziraphale writhed against the couch and whimpered things that had never before been heard from a mouth so sanctified, and Crowley stopped bothering to breathe altogether, wrapping one hand around Aziraphale's hip and letting the other move with shameless desperation into his own trousers.

For a long moment, there was a fire-white, rushing silence. Aziraphale's hand had found his way to his mouth and his knuckle was hard between his teeth.

The muscles in Crowley's throat moved as he swallowed.

Aziraphale released a shaky breath and wished Crowley wouldn't look quite so smug as he rose from his supplicant's kneel and kissed him, hot and lingering, cupping his jawbone in one possessive hand.

"Oh," said Aziraphale, "_God_."

"_Don't blame me,_" said a cheerful voice from somewhere. "_Even I saw that one coming._"


	3. Chapter 3

It was a rainy Saturday.

The kind that can only be found in England, when the gray hue of the sky seems to bleed into the landscape and turns every inch of the two-and-a-half metre visibility radius into a dreary sludge.

It was a rainy Saturday and Anthony J. Crowley was strolling up and down the street, punching surreptitious cracks into lorry windows so the seats would get soggy and the passengers would get cranky. Keeping the cracks small enough to be invisible, yet large enough to let in the rain wasn't an easy task, and the demon was quite proud of his handiwork. Every expression of misery as a passenger sank into the seat with a tooth-rattling squelch made him chuckle with unholy glee.

Crowley wasn't on the job. He was simply bored.

And the reason that Anthony Crowley was bored enough to be out wreaking subtle havoc on this particular rainy Saturday was that a certain angel was on duty.

Although Azirahale had been tainted, as had Crowley, by the touch of humanity, the Upstairs Boss was a little more lenient about that sort of thing than his Downstairs counterpart. Go figure. So Aziraphale was still called upon from time to time to appear in dreams delivering messages of hope, put the fear of God into junkies, and hold supporting roles in Nativity plays.

So to be perfectly accurate, when Jeremy Mason, aged thirty-nine, collapsed into the back of a cab after a long afternoon of answering telephones and being bureaucratic and let out a yell of despair to find himself soaked from knees to navel, the party towards whom he should have been directing his copious and fluent profanity was, in fact, a young woman named Jessica McKay who had decided to end it all and was currently perched on a ledge fourteen stories up about eight blocks from Mr. Mason, and into whose ear Aziraphale was resignedly murmuring things like "You're really better off without him."

This was the life they led these days. Aziraphale worked, Crowley sulked, and civilians suffered for it.

But about an hour later, when Miss Jessica McKay had staggered into the arms of the friendly policeman, whimpering, "I 'eard the voice of _jay-sus_, I did," Crowley had lost interest in his torturous game and gone home to prepare a torturous game of a different sort.

"Crowley," called Aziraphale, shutting the door of Crowley's apartment behind him and hanging his keys neatly on the hook beside the doorframe. "_Crowley_."

Puzzled, he poked his head into the kitchen, which was empty of both food and implements and contained instead Crowley's magnificent array of potted plants. But no demon.

"Show yourself, spawn of Satan," he called playfully, hanging his beloved tweed jacket in the closet and buttoning it up on the hanger.

He stepped into the bedroom and found himself slammed face first against the wall with a pair of strong, unnaturally hot hands pinning his wrists to his sides.

"Hallo, Crowley," he said.

"Quiet, _angel_," snarled the voice by his ear. "Another word and I'll discorporate you."

There was a short pause.

"And wipe that smile off your face, you smug little _cherub_."

Aziraphale complied.

The hands holding him motionless tightened on his wrists, then spun him around, and Aziraphale found himself staring into golden eyes fringed with surprisingly long lashes. His eyes flickered to the curve of Crowley's lower lip before he stretched forward and bit down on it lightly. Taking advantage of Crowley's surprise, he gripped him by the elbows and whirled him around until their positions were reversed and the demon was the one with his shoulderblades pressed into the wall.

Aziraphale kissed him again, his lips demanding against Crowley's mouth, which was soft and dry.

"Get on your knees," said Crowley hoarsely, trying to regain control of the situation, and Aziraphale did. Without being prompted, he wrenched Crowley's trousers open and and shoved him more firmly against the wall, one hand curled around each narrow hipbone.

"Good," Crowley meant to say, but it would have been ridiculous to imply that Aziraphale was on his knees because Crowley had ordered it, so he rumbled out a quiet groan instead.

"Shut up," Aziraphale meant to say, but his mouth was otherwise occupied, so it emerged as a low hum.

Crowley's head fell back against the wall with a dull thud and he clutched at the angel's shoulders. This encounter had not gone quite according to plan.

"Please," he managed, "Aziraphale," (which was no small feat in his current state of verbal dishevelment) and then, "_Fuck_, you holy bastard, _please_."

"You want something, demon?" A smile touched the very corners of Aziraphale's mouth as he drew back and met Crowley's eyes.

The angel's lips were full and pink and faintly glistening. Crowley launched himself at Aziraphale, muffling his quiet yelp with his own lips as Aziraphale's back hit the floor, Crowley atop him. Clumsy fingers pushed at Aziraphale's clothes until they fell haphazardly free, exposing skin to warm, slightly scaled skin.

"I need you," murmured Crowley, knowing what effect his words would have on the angel, "No more teasing. I need you now." Sure enough, Aziraphale's back arched up, pressing the soft expanse of his chest firmly against Crowley's.

"No more teasing," agreed Aziraphale breathlessly. They had played this game enough times, taking it in turns to be the aggressor as it suited them, that he knew that he could push his infernal lover to the point of desperation, tantalizing him and then denying satisfaction for as many snarling, sweaty hours as his fairly abundant supply of angelic whimsy prompted.

To a point.

Aziraphale opened eyes hazy with lust to a sight more tempting than any he'd encountered. Crowley had reared up, straddling him there on the lush carpet, and leaned back at an angle that would have had a human spine cracking and wrenching in protest. His left hand had vanished behind him, but Aziraphale could feel the motion of the demon's knuckles against his hip as Crowley prepared himself perfunctorily, his long-lashed eyes fluttering at the sensations supplied him by his own unnaturally long and dextrous fingers.

The demon's right hand was curled into a loose fist before him, moving languidly up and down. Aziraphale frowned and knocked it away, replacing it instantly with his own. His grip was slower yet than Crowley's had been, promising pleasure rather than supplying it, and Crowley's answering wriggle was so satisfying that Aziraphale felt a clutch of _almost_ in the bottom of his stomach.

Which, he thought sternly, quelling the sensation, was simply absurd. Crowley would mock him _sans merci_ if he spilled early, losing control like some youngster mere centuries old.

And then Crowley was sliding down on him, leaning back on one pale, lean arm, slicker than sin and twice as hot with something he had to have miracled up. Aziraphale's lips parted, but there was nothing to say that wasn't dangerously profane, so he reached up and gripped Crowley by the upper arms, hard. As Crowley arched his hips, slipping off Aziraphale inch by torturous inch, the angel tightened his grip and pulled, lifting himself until he was chest to chest with Crowley and forcing the demon back down onto him in an instant of breathless pleasure so intense it was nearly painful.

Crowley gave a strangled yelp as the control he'd been savoring was taken deftly from his pale hands. In the next instant, Aziraphale had gotten his legs beneath him, lowered Crowley with tender inexorability to the carpet, and held him there. Keeping most of his weight on Crowley's upper arms, he gently eased himself free, just teasing the demon, barely nudging at him, waiting patiently. Crowley writhed mutedly, trying to force some contact, but Aziraphale only kissed him and laughed.

After a long moment that was as agonizing for him as it was for his demonic lover, Aziraphale relented and pressed forward and exquisitely forward. Crowley squirmed, snarled, jerked at his lover's grip on his hands – but all struggling ceased as the angel's gradual motion became a rhythmic one.

"Yeah," said Crowley, breathless.

"Yes," agreed Aziraphale around Crowley's earlobe.

Twenty clutching fingers, eight limbs, four lips.

Two hearts.

Six millenia.

One point of perfect brightness.


End file.
